Talk:James Murray Mason
My concern about the Slidell article apply here as well. Turtle Fan (talk) 02:25, February 18, 2016 (UTC) Deletion? Mason is mentioned several times in The Guns of the South but they're all incidental. It is never revealed what happened to him after the POD. The relevant information about the watershed for CSA-UK relations can be gleaned from other articles. John Slidell has the same phenomenon.JonathanMarkoff (talk) 06:11, August 27, 2016 (UTC) Restore? This should probably be restored since TR found a reference to a conversation with John Russell, 1st Earl Russell which did not happen in OTL.JonathanMarkoff (talk) 05:33, October 14, 2016 (UTC) Mason in Harry Harrison's AH I just read Harry Harrison's exciting (but not flawless) Stars and Stripes series, where Mason appears directly. The strange thing is, he's introduced as William Murray Mason, then has his name corrected in a later passage, but in another chapter is John Murray Mason and later back to William. While this series is quite good (although there are moments of lazy deus ex machina dumbness, and the ending is way too good to be true), crap like this happens throughout the series, suggesting that someone hired a drunk proofreader. If there was a Harry Harrison wiki formatted like this one, the section "Inconsistencies in Harrison's Work#Inconsistencies in Stars and Stripes" would be pretty full.JonathanMarkoff (talk) 19:04, March 20, 2017 (UTC) :Exciting? That's not how I remember it. I gave up on it halfway through, maybe it got better after that point; but I doubt it, because one of the reasons I gave up on it was that the good guys kept catching way too many lucky breaks and best-case scenarios. Turtle Fan (talk) 18:47, March 25, 2017 (UTC) ::It reads like a comic book without pictures. I prefer that style over HT's endlessly repetitive descriptions of trench battles and comparative quality of cigarettes. But HH sucked at character development, at least in that trilogy which is the only longer work of his I've read.JonathanMarkoff (talk) 18:57, March 25, 2017 (UTC) :::I remember some rather long-winded pontifications on political philosophy. That's not exactly comic book stuff. Turtle Fan (talk) 00:51, March 26, 2017 (UTC) ::::What, you didn't enjoy John Stuart Mill as a deus ex machina single-handedly ending slavery with his wisdom and thereby ending the ACW? :::::It was Mill, wasn't it? Fucking bored me stiff. Turtle Fan (talk) 07:00, March 27, 2017 (UTC) ::::There was much of S&S that was charming and even quite good, but Harrison himself admitted that he was creating a utopia in the past, a utopia that depended on the heroic US dismantling the British Empire thereby leaving Ireland a better place (the world may or may not have been affected, Ireland was the big focus). Consequently, Harrison's characters are horribly underdeveloped, becoming either idealized American good guys or contemptible British bad guys. Historical figures were broad stereotypes of themselves, and basically did what Harrison needed them to do, even if it was inconsistent with who they were in real life. It never felt real to me. :::::A good assessment. It held no appeal for me. Turtle Fan (talk) 07:00, March 27, 2017 (UTC) ::::HT's flaws have been discussed, but let's face it, when he's on, his characters have some complexity. Featherston had one or two empathetic moments before TVO, so did Atvar and Straha at various times, Morrell wasn't perfect all the time, Flora had to temper her idealism with pragmatism, Truman is probably going to win even though's made two terrible choices for every good one, etc. He also refrains from building utopias. TR (talk) 06:23, March 26, 2017 (UTC) :::::The rejection of utopianism--which is often quite pointed and deliberate--is I think my favorite thing about him. He does good characterization sometimes, but counterexamples abound. But he always keeps his societies grounded. Turtle Fan (talk) 07:00, March 27, 2017 (UTC)